The decision to make Marines more involved in campaign is awesome, but there are a few twists that end up lowering enjoyment and may lead players to simply abandon or ignore marines.
- if on foot, they get stuck in rough terrain (happened to me right in the first 10 minutes, where they watched from the rocks of a hill how I mascaraed the repair yard with the tank, then they got wiped by the airship since they could not move)
- They fall way behind if the player uses the grappling hook to navigate or vehicles they need to be faster when Chief is not close, or need to teleport closer when outside of view.
- If you chose to carry them around with a Razorback, the controls of the vehicle and it`s physics poses serious problems with getting to objective, the Hogs just slip, slide and turn over way too easy while deflecting from small objects like trampolines.
All in all, if the player chooses to get involved with the marines, give them guns and drag them around it significantly slows down game pace and forces the player to confront these difficulties.
They also fall off cliffs and cannot pass the chasms between the ring segments, leading to loss of good guns.
In addition, they seem to take less cover than the enemy AI.
They should also stay put when you enter buildings if they cannot follow, I noticed that they swarm around outside trying to find a way to the player which leads to diverse types of avoidable deaths and loss of cool guns.
The feature just needs a bit more flushing out, if you want to further build on it, or a practical fix so they can follow you around more effectively and not arrive 10 minutes after the fight is over.
Maybe this can be solved by a “summon” mechanic, where you call them on the radio and they arrive in stile or just teleport outside field of view and advance from there.
(in style would mean you can call squad X or Y for help, they arrive via Pelican with their preferred vehicle and guns, or the guns and vehicle you previously left them with)